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Challenge BBC
Challenge BBC: An Institution with Doctrines and Practice of Public Journalism? Objective Journalism?
If BBC is by doctrine maintained as a “classical” media, then its practice may be subjected to watch for bias. If BBC is by doctrine a Public Journalism or even “Objective Journalism” , there is no bias to watch. If it does fall into the latter category, then what exactly is its “value” and what does it advocate? Who in where is or are the targeted audience?
Furthermore, is BBC an institution for journalism so as to distinguish from those blogs, forums…the public media of free expressions and exchanges of various individual opinions? If BBC does depends on the subscriptions or other financial means supported financially by its audiences, then it is not exactly a propaganda machine to conduct information warfare to supply misinformation to targeted audiences as the institution(s) operated under the U.S. Department of Defense paid by a federal fund.
BBC often labels China with the word “the Communist”. If this is a reflection of the values of BBC and thus the news gathering angles to be based off, then it helps to explain why the BBC’s news reports on China do not see the events “eye to eye” with China which by constitution is a Communist country. If this is a logical to presume, then the BBC should have no reason to complain that the Chinese Government does not offer equal opportunities for them to access to the news events in China: sure enough, the anti-communist BBC will always be gathering the evidence to advocate its own values that may be found in total conflicts with the ones of the Chinese Governments.
Given it is not a “non biased” fact finding totally subjective to the naked truth, without any objective comments/interpretations, the BBC has politically placed itself on “the other side” opposing to the side of the Chinese Government.
If BBC is openly advocate its values in its journalism practices, in various languages, the presumption would be that the targeted audience, to be influenced by BBC, is beyond the English speaking group. Since it does offer Chinese version of its journalism products, a logical presumption is that the no less than 20% Chinese speaking group in the human society is being targeted by the BBC. Well, how effective is the BBC’s advocacy?
If the Chinese community in Britain, along with the Chinese communities many other countries, are openly making their voice heard contradicting to the ones of the BBC and other western media, it would seem that the BBC’s advocacy strategies are failing at least at the targeted Chinese audience who have all the “free access” to the media operated in the free countries. If these Chinese communities are siding with the Communist Governments on these events that the free press of the Western media, such as the BBC, are covering, evidently the advocacy is defeated by the Communist media in the BBC’s own turf.
So bias or not, whatever the values the BBC is trying to advocate and try to insert the projected influence over the almost a quarter of the world population, it is a complete defeat by the Communist Chinese Government who has obvious disadvantages in the propaganda power outside its own country, where the BBC is operated.
Why the defeat? One possible reason could be the BBC has got to the point of careless: they take any pictures and go on to speculate without any source citing, regardless if the image they published would support their speculations. How far away would this be regarded by the targeted audience from the accepted journalism practice? Would this type of journalism be labeled as total groundless fabrications to serve certain propaganda purposes? How would the targeted audience respond to the type of journalism practice? Not just angered Chinese communities around the world are making their voices of objections heard, but also in countries like Israel where the citizens are mounting pressures for their government agency over media and foreign policies to implement a boycott of the BBC!
Even if the BBC is practicing its modern doctrine of journalism as an objective, it should review and examine the failures, or it may find itself in a difficult position to compete against the real free media: the online community forums and the blogs not making a living out of journalism.
One of the biggest punishments for a journalism institution which perceived acting carelessly and thus completely out of touch with the values and the needs of the targeted audiences, is being completely ignored by the very audience, by boycott or not: simply because the institution is no longer accredited news source to the audience any more.
Regardless what journalism doctrines the British institution is practicing, if the BBC does not see and realize the magnitude of the possible impacts and the far reaching consequences deriving from coming crisis at its own door, then perhaps the Pentagon’s own institution should dispatch some of its own trained professionals to their British counterparts for some seminars on modern journalism that works. When Tony Blair complained about the BBC bias on the Iraq War coverage, perhaps he should have thought about that.
In the meantime, while the BBC may have failed their Chinese audience, they may have succeeded in preaching among the English speaking audiences to buy their version of the stories. It is the media that guide or misguide the mass, who in turn put the pressures on the politicians at the executive institutions and the legislation institutions. The public opinion hi-jacking is always the power within the hands of the press. Without proper watch, the strong minded press can be too powerful what they could effective achieve to advocate their own values and believes, as the modern journalism is practiced. Who is out there to keep these big dogs under watch and thus stay honest? If we cannot trust the politicians as much as they would like to, what makes us to believe that the eagles at those press controllers are being safe guarded for the public good? Should we trust the CIA or MIA for information sources when they come out to serve the public?
Misinformation/lack of information may lead to miscalculation which may result in bad decisions. If Mao’s Government and Washington were better informed prior to the Korean War, the world history may have been written entirely different. The Tibetans and the Hans in China are not like the English in North Ireland or what used to be in terms of ethnic conflicts. The British Royal Army forces had fought a bloody long battle there, which is what the Chinese government does not want to see its own regular army to repeat the mistake made by the British for “heavy handed crack down on the uprising”. So whatever the BBC is advocating, deliberate misinformation feeding could lead to very negative consequences to the people of all groups in China. The Chinese communities apparently see it, Dalai Lama certainly does too. The power of Western media is a double edge sword for those who play for international attentions, as well as for the politicians of the home countries of those press where the public is being manipulated by the objective journalism. If and when the very bad decisions are made by the politicians running the public offices of various nations, we may see ugly consequences from unnecessary and avoidable conflicts between various parties of interests. The BBC or any other journalism institutions may survive from their own bad behaviors governed by the market mechanism, which the audiences may or may not care, but the public’s best interests are not to be hi-jacked and jeopardized by any of the journalism institutions of any big heads.
Taken from http://www.challengebbc.com |
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Post at 13-4-2008 20:33
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